


A Third Place

by petercapaldiscoiffure



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: BDSM, Drug Use, F/M, Gardening, Slow Burn, eventually, for obvious reasons, of the milder hippie dippie sort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:38:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10686189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petercapaldiscoiffure/pseuds/petercapaldiscoiffure
Summary: In a flash of green and the fever of war, a Qunari spy and an elven God find themselves drawn into the orbit of a human gardener and unwilling apostate, the unlikely sun around which a continent now revolves - and the fight for Thedas becomes intertwined with a battle against their own worst impulses.The Maker always did like his little jokes.





	1. The End

 

_“We met—in our mutual gaze—in between a third place I’d not yet been."_

_\- Marie Howe, “The Affliction”_

 

 

**_First Day’s Eve, 9:39 Dragon_ **

Revolution finally arrived in Ostwick on a gray winter’s afternoon, tumbling from the sky on the leg of a ragged pigeon.

The Circle gardens were quiet that day—all but the hardiest of the surviving plants slumbered in the chill damp of the seaside keep, bothered only with the churning of the worms around their roots in the wet, moldering dirt. Just beyond the slick, mossy green walls, the town proper could occasionally be heard as it went about its day. 

Grown outwards from the great fortress over near half a dozen Ages, Ostwick’s mess of slums and alleys and chalk-white manses spread out in a maze until it met the sea. Even hidden away as the city’s mages were, the reminder of a life left unlived outside the Chantry’s grip was never far. The sounds and smells carried up on the winds that yowled up and over the turrets and ramparts, whispering through the few cracks to be found in the great, impassable walls to whoever might chance to stop and listen. That afternoon, the garden was particularly prone to the odd disembodied conversation; the blacksmith just beyond the gates grousing with his wife about their aimless son, or a Templar two blocks down arguing over the price of a Rivaini orange with a tired fruit seller.

Nearer, round the corner and through a set of back hall doors, the clank and stomp of a Templar making their rounds pierced the fog, as constant as the smell of sea scum and rotting moss.  

And tucked behind the crooked shed pressed against the garden’s western wall, two mages—one who had all the necessary permissions and signatures to be puttering around the gardens unattended and one who very much did not—held their breath. 

_One beat. Two beats. Three -_

“D’you think he’s gone?” breathed the first. His fingers, long and lean as the rest of him, waved away the acrid stink rising from the other’s little wooden pipe, languid as his voice was tight. Even hiding from the steely eyes of a Templar itching for an infraction, there was something louche and insolent about the cut of him, all red lips and coils of dark hair, the color high on his pale cheeks like splashes of wine.      

“You mean _her_ , now,” his friend muttered back around a cloud of smoke, biting back a cough. She didn’t bother whispering—she had every right to be out of doors, and she knew which Templars could be teased and charmed into leniency even if she didn’t. They wouldn’t bother them overly much. _The privileges of an old name and nice rack_ , she mused, nearly choking on her smoke as a sudden giggle caught her by surprise. She blinked, pulling a face at her friend’s shushing.

“ _Annelise_ ,” she continued, only a little quieter than before. “She’s trading off with Wendel now the others‘ve gone all…” 

She waved her free hand in an airy little twirl—and airily twirling into the ether was as good as any place the Templars could have fled, near half their number abandoning their posts to run off Maker knows where to ‘do their part.’ Doing their part to beat and maim mages or anyone who helped them, or worse, if the whisperings were right. _Bet they can do a lot more than just watch us now, out there, bet they just love that_ , some of the girls would say, between rolls of their eyes and shakes of their heads, because what else was there to do? No more dangerous to be stuck in here, these days. At least the Knight-Commander still insisted on _some_ semblance of order.

But it didn’t pay to listen too closely to whispers, not here, where nothing much had changed except the remaining Templars’ grumblings about their new shifts, where the plants still slept their green sleep, the air was still sharp with frost and walls still stood, grey and immovable. And maybe they did watch a little more closely these days, the Templars—that much was true, but anymore half their wards were withered with age or practically still in their milk pants, and neither made for such fierce opponents. There just wasn’t much to see.  

“Oh, Annie, my beloved,” the young man moaned, hands grasping for his heart. The faded footsteps had restored his confidence, and he snatched the pipe from his friend, puffing the little cherry of elfroot crimson and white as she snorted, adjusting her robes tighter against the chill.

“You think I’m joking,” he said, “but have you ever watched her marching away? Bet she’s got a lovely little ar— “

She swatted his arm, eyes rolling. She confiscated her pipe as he laughed to himself.

“ _Don’t_ —she’s nice enough and I think you’re being _quite_ rude, you know.”

“I’ll have _you_ know what I was going to say was perfectly nice. Complimentary to a fault, even, especially for someone that’s never even sneaked a peek under all that squeaky armor.” He sniffed, scratching the stubble shadowing his neck. “Horrible little tease, that one.”

“Right, well, somehow I don’t think she cares a jot about teasing you or anyone else…” She trailed off—he wasn’t listening anymore, his eye caught by something overhead. She shaded her eyes against the pale glare of the sky, trying to follow his sight.

“What’re you—?”

“Look, up there, is that a—”

Whatever it was, it seemed to have decided it had had quite enough of the sky and its wind, and had promptly come hurtling down, wings all akimbo. It spun and flapped and finally crashed into a heap of steaming compost with a dull thud and sad little squeak.

“What ‘n the Void…?” He was the first to react, shoving off from his place at the shed and starting out towards the thing—the bird, she knew, because of course what else could it be? A poor little bird that had gotten overwhelmed or caught up in a top wind somewhere, finally giving into exhaustion before it managed to catch sight of their dovecote on the east ramparts, to land amid the pigeons and the promise of day old bread crusts.

The thought of the animal lying dead, or dying, in a pile of slowly curing refuse shook her out of her fog, and she tamped out the pipe before setting off across the gardens behind her friend, brushing a stray curl behind her ears. It was, she thought, not the way anyone should have to go, beast or not. _He_ would just stare at the poor thing, most likely, repulsed and a little frightened, while it blinked at him. He was so sensitive, sometimes.

“It’s one of ours,” he called back as he reached the bird, all thoughts of annoying his dear Annelise apparently fled. “Probably just another order of healing potions or something.” The disappointment in his voice was palpable.

“What did you think it was going to be, a jeweled nightingale escaped from an Antivan prince or something?” She came up behind him, stepping round to bend to the bird—he was right, a messenger pigeon like one of their own, the sort used by most of the Marcher Circles. It was said in Orlais and Antiva they used ravens, and that in Rivain they even had tropical birds of every color imaginable that could speak the messages for their masters, but out here the unassuming post pigeon with its poky little waddle and sensible grey coat was all they needed.

“Don’t get too close, Henri, it might molt on you,” she teased, and he made a gagging noise, the great lump of his voice-box bobbing up and down comically.

“Ugh. Is it dead? Poor little bugger, must have come from Ansburg or somewhere to get so run down. Maybe even Tantervale.”

“Probably Ansberg.” They exchanged a glance—Ansberg was absolutely loony, war or no, everyone knew that; sending out half-starved pigeons across the country was exactly something they’d do; not even on purpose, just because they forgot. Probably one of those Senior Enchanters always going on about the transitory effects of a weakened Veil on one’s underthings, or some such.

“I don’t know how, but it’s not dead yet, no,” she said, feeling its warm feathery breast, the little heart faint under her fingertips but pattering so fast she almost couldn’t feel the pattern anymore, like a hard winter’s hail covered in down. “It’s worn to pieces, though—we should take it up to the dovecote and set it to rights, shouldn’t we, little mum?”         

The pigeon had no reply, and so was promptly gathered into her savior’s robes, but not before the other plucked the courage to poke at her trembling leg.

“Shouldn’t we get the message? No point in waiting til we get up all those stairs—we might be dead by then. I’d kill for one simple teleportation spell, I swear it.” And he was snatching at the little roll of paper from its bindings round the bird’s leg, over protest on his friend’s part and an affronted wing flap on the pigeon’s.

“Look, now you’re upsetting the little thing, you’re always too rough with them—and don’t _read_ it, for Andraste’s sake, they’ll see the seal is broken and then you’re going to get an earful—”   

“And why should they care when it’s addressed to no one, see?” He waved the little roll in front of her face, all innocence. “You won’t get your ears boxed anyway, they bloody love you.” And that they both knew was true, teasing or not. “Could be for me, anyway, maybe I’ve won the fancy of that lad I saw eyeing me up and down at the market—”

“What, a year ago? Two years ago? How long has it been since you’ve even been _allowed_ —”  

“Or you, even,” he interrupted, changing tact. “Maybe some pirate lover of yours you meet on the sly when you’re doing all your _trading_ after dark, huh?”

She sniffed, stroking the pigeon, prim as afternoon tea biscuits.

“You know I don’t do anything of the sort. “ She paused, a smile curling the edges of her lips. “Unless you think poor old Barton is my lover. Or a _pirate_ , Maker’s balls.

“You know,” she said, holding the pigeon firm as she ignored his snort of laughter and dug around in a pocket for some spare crumbs, “actually, that’s it, you’ve caught me, I’ve been having a lovely tumble with a senile eighty-year-old Templar every midweek for the last five years. We’re eloping, actually, on his boat now that everything’s gone tits up. Hail the revolution and all that. We’ll be picking you up at your weekly market run, I’m sure.”

“Oof, low blow, Emmy, low blow.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at the look on his face, wounded pride glossing over the truth—that he knew he had her, and he was smug with it. She was, at the heart of it, a bit of a soft touch and he knew it better than anyone.

“Fine, if you lift the seal without breaking it, I’ll melt it back down before we hand it over to Lydia, alright?”

He was already slipping a thumbnail under the blue wax unique to Circle correspondence, and she—not particularly caring one way or the other about orders or love letters or anything else at the moment, unless it involved someone finally finagling a way to smuggle in a particularly rare and occasionally illegal reagent she’d been wanting for a new formulation of lotus smoke, which was rather unlikely to come in the form of official correspondence, anyway—moved to gather some water in her palm from a nearby bucket for her patient, who had pecked its way through what crumbs she could find.

As Henri unfurled the letter, she sat very still, careful not to spill the water as she watched the bird dip its head up and down, slow at first, and then faster as it regained its strength. Its heart was calmed now, steadied under her hands, which she’d let glow with the faint green of healing magic for just a moment. Stupid, really, to waste it on a bird, she knew. 

Just then, a noise rose from her friend, something between a gasp and a curse, too low and too restrained for it to be the start of another bad joke. When she frowned up at him, she stilled—his face had gone pale as whey left out overnight, sickly and gray. His eyes darted back to the top of the little note, to re-read whatever few words could have possibly been scrawled on it.

She felt it, then, the little curls of fear down in her toes, at the whites of his eyes—the tingling, like when she was too near the drop of the ramparts and couldn’t help but look over, or before, when she was a child and she stood at the edge of the sea staring out to the end of the world and wondering what could possibly live beyond the horizon, about the madness they said overtook sailors who sailed too far from home.

Suddenly, she wanted to get up, to turn away from whatever _this_ was, or could be. Silly, of course - it was just a missive, and Henri could be play-acting for all she knew. 

Still. 

She did not want to look. She wanted to gather her robes and escape indoors, to smile apologetically to Annalise when she saw them emerge from the gardens without a guard, to make some excuse about emergency seed organizing or something. She wanted to plod up all those flights of stairs to tuck her little winged friend in a comfy nook in the dovecote before checking in with Senior Enchanter Heloise and her patients, with sweet, wispy Magret and her weak joints, even handsy Frederick and his gout.

But she couldn’t. She found herself frozen to the spot, staring, wondering—  

“Em.” The other mage’s hands shook as he stepped forward, staring at the note in his hands like it was about to leap out and gnaw on his bones before holding it out to her. “ _Emeline_. You need to see this.”

And so she took the message, not wanting to see the spatters of red on the edge, not wanting to think about the shakes and scratches of the tiny lettering—lettering she recognized even when it was written by a shaking hand. It was the same neat, angular script from the margins of the essays from her school days as a young apprentice, trying so hard to impress the great bear of an Enchanter with the warm eyes and booming voice. He’d been chosen to lead the Ostwick delegation because of his knack for diplomacy and good sense, she remembered. He'd talked down more than his share of squabbles and outright fisticuffs in their little hothouse.  

Now, she could see his carefully considered letters so clearly written in haste, the edges of the parchment torn so roughly—and she read .

_Lydia —_

_Massacre—templars, mages, many dead. We flee to Andoral. All are mad with vengeance. Secure passage away if you can, do not linger long, nor trust Edgar’s men._

_It is all lost._

_— Magnus_


	2. My Kingdom For A Biscuit

**One Year Later**

_“The prisoner…”  
_

_“She is still unconscious, should I call for the…”_

_“How one person could have possibly done this…”_

The voices bled in and out of the muggy dark. Emeline’s head throbbed with every intrusion boiling purple and red behind her lids, mirroring the ache of her knees on cold, hard stone. Her lip felt fat, swollen like a ripe plum and tasting of blood, and she couldn’t remember why. Her hand hurt even worse, and she couldn’t remember anything about that, either. She found herself trying to retreat back into the warm blanket of dreamless sleep, to edge away from the whispers and footsteps and fighting—

_—fighting? Who was fighting? It sounded far off, but maybe...no, not so far off. They had sworn a truce for today, hadn’t they? The Templars and the mages?_

It was then she finally noticed the bite of the shackles on her thin wrists, and the realization made her stomach drop even as she tried to keep perfectly still, as easy to overlook as one of the rats she could hear chuffling around behind her. She thought she was like to have tossed it up onto the ground instead, but her spare breakfast— _that_ she could remember, smoke-dried fish with stale bread and half a stolen apple, mealy with age; their supplies were running dry again and no one at Haven would lower themselves to trade—at least preserved her from that one indignity. Her belly only rumbled, now.

“She’s waking,” one of the voices said then. “Call for Cassandra.”

Emeline stiffened, and if she’d been trying to be subtle before, she entirely gave up the game now—she was overcome with a wave of nausea as her entire body spasming. There wasn’t a moment to get her bearings before her hand suddenly lit through with a sort of green lightning, the color of acid and the feel of it too, all up and down the length of her arm, and she shrieked at the pain of it. It was like her arm, and her hand most of all, was being torn asunder from the inside out, the flesh like it was burning from the bone, and then—it was over, almost as soon as it had started. Emeline was left panting like a dog, trying not to retch.   

If her captor, whoever she was, hadn’t already sussed out her captive’s stirring, that little display certainly would have more than done the job.

“So, you are finally back with the living.” That voice again. It was mild, feminine, maybe even a little wry. Orlesian, for certain. It also didn’t sound particularly surprised or perturbed at her prisoner’s sudden attack.

Emeline slowly opened her eyes to see a woman—fine-featured with eyes as blue and cold as the frozen lakes of the Frostbacks—considering her. She wore strange armor, hooded, like some sort of spy or something out of an adventure novel, but the clasp she wore; it was odd, Emeline couldn’t place it, not here in the dark with just a few torches to scatter their light along the walls. A...sword, maybe? But not a Templar sword, she didn’t think. And some sort of circle or...something, anyway. Whatever it was, it looked like the Chantry and it gave her the shivers, that much she knew.

She had far less trouble recognizing the heraldry of her second visitor, who stormed into the dungeon just then—and there was no denying it now, she was definitely in a dungeon, surrounded by empty cells; whether their lack of occupants was encouraging or not, she hadn’t decided—like an angry bear coming to maul her prey. Or a dragon, maybe, the way her breath clouded in the cold. Neither comparison seemed to bode well.

The heavy wooden door had slammed into the wall behind the warrior, raising dust and molded bits of straw with it, but she paid it no heed, only stalking forward. The sound had Emeline flinching back, the crash of wood against stone, the pounding of the boots, the way it rang through her ears like a clap to her head—but not before she clocked the scar across the hollowed cheek, the fine sword at her hip stained a strange, murky black, like blood aged and cured til it looked more like ink spilled across the page. And finally, that armor, that all-seeing eye wrapped in divine flames emblazoned on the chest. That armor screamed the exact word Emeline very much did not want to hear.

_Seeker._

And the first thought that entered her head was— _they’re going to make me Tranquil, this is it, it’s over._

The second was— _but I haven’t done anything wrong!_

And the third was— _and when has that ever stopped them before?_

And then there she was, the Seeker, breathing in her face, all barely controlled rage where the other woman was placid as cool water. Emeline could smell sweat and leather and the metallic tang of blood on her, though it didn’t look to be her own. She didn’t have time to think on it before she was cringing away from the woman’s voice, harsh and low in her ear.

“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you right now.”

“I—I don’t understand—”

“The conclave is destroyed,” the Seeker continued, pacing now, prowling really, like a cat considering a mouse. “Everyone who attended is dead,” and here, her voice wavered a moment before she managed to catch it,” —except for you.”

So that was it, they thought—

“ _What?_ And you think _I_ did it? That I killed all those…” Emeline stopped short, the enormity of the situation finally starting to penetrate the fog. “They’re—they’re all dead? All of them?” She swallowed, hard, eyes flicking between the two women.

The Seeker and the strange Orlesian woman glanced at each other before the latter spoke.

“There were no survivors that we know of, no. Only you.” From anyone else, to anyone else, there might have been sympathy in those words. Here, there was only accusation.

Emeline breathed, deep and shaking and almost certain she was about to do something unforgivable, like cry. Then she remembered exactly who she was speaking to—had very nearly been yelling at just a moment ago. 

 _Stop it_ , she thought sternly, and obediently, carefully stowed her mourning away for another, more prudent time. Tears rarely got anyone out of trouble anyway, in her experience, just a deeply regrettable moment of public embarrassment and a runny nose. 

So she lowered her head instead, trying to look every picture the innocent, confused, exceedingly deferential mage.

Which wasn’t so hard, all things considered.  

“I’m s-sorry, I swear, I didn’t—”

“You claim you had nothing to do with it?” The Seeker scoffed, in no mood for apologies it seemed, stammered or otherwise. “Then explain _this_.”

The...thing, in Emeline’s hand flared anew as the women grabbed at it, the sickly light blinding her as the pain shot through her arm, crackled down her spine, her toes curling with it. She could taste the yellow bile in the back of her throat, the acid burn of it, and had to bite back another retch.

“I—,” she panted, trying to ignore the clammy sweat that was now coating her aching back, “—I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how it got there, I swear it!” And what idiot would do that to themselves on _purpose_ , she wanted to snap, like feeling as though your entire arm was about to burn to ash and shatter into a thousand pieces all at once was somehow bloody desirable?

Maker’s balls, what even in the cursed Void had happened to her?

“You’re lying!” The Seeker advanced on her, grabbing at the front of her robes as Emeline flinched back before the other one hastened to pull her away.

“Cassandra, we _need_ her,” she admonished, and that seemed to have some calming effect on the hothead—Cassandra. A very pretty name for an unusually cruel and very unfair sort of woman, Emeline thought rather sourly. The Orlesian, still nameless, turned to her then.

“What do you remember about the Conclave? How this all began?” There was a slightly harder edge to her voice now, and Emeline knew she was far past the point of being able to push her luck. Eyes down again, she thought, she _really_ thought, trying to recall what exactly had preceded...this.

And so she prepared to do what she did best—talk her way out of trouble.

“I’m not sure. I...there was—running? And something was chasing me, I…” She perked up a little as a thought hit her. “Oh, I was in a closet! Before, I mean, I was in a closet with...an elf, yes, that’s it! Actually, I don’t really know if it was a closet, do temples have those? Well, it was a very tiny room, then. Anyway, she was a mercenary of some sort I think—very, you know, fierce and all that.” 

Her name had been...Lianna? Or maybe Sienna. It was all a bit fuzzy now. She thought she might have smelled of damp wool. Emeline’s shoulders managed to droop even further as she realized that poor Lianna or Sienna or whoever she’d been was probably dead, too.

 _Poor woman, hired to protect a pack of rude and probably very ungrateful humans and look at what she got,_ she thought.

She noticed, then, that the dungeon had gone awfully quiet. When she looked up, the two captors were staring at her, bemused.

“You were...in a closet.” The Seeker’s voice was dry as dust. “With an elf.”

“Er, well...yes? It’s just, it was before the Conclave had started and it was all dreadful dull, just standing about and all. I was just there because of my name, you see, and I didn’t think it was very prudent to refuse with the whole last chance to end the war business, of course, but the thing is I really didn’t have anything to do. And since I really didn’t have anything to do I thought to sneak off and...well, I was feeling quite anxious about the whole thing, too, all those Templars, very frightening, and there was this elf, and she was quite pretty and I had a little pack of elfroot which I find to be very good for relaxing one’s nerves—”

_she was rambling, Maker preserve her, she was rambling like an absolute nutter and she couldn’t seem to stop_

“—and we just sort of thought to—well, to go find somewhere to not be so bored, is the thing, and…” She trailed off, eyes darting from one to the other as the Orlesian glanced back at Cassandra, who looked about ready to throttle anyone within arms reach. “Right, not helpful,” she muttered, deflated, eyes dropping back to the ground. They didn’t exactly seem impressed with her tale thus far. She vaguely considered, trying not to panic, if she shouldn’t have embellished a bit. Or maybe just left out the elfroot. That Seeker certainly didn’t look like she held with that sort of thing. Most of them, she was fairly certain, generally didn’t.

She wondered, briefly, if the itching on her forehead was just in her imagination.

“Wait, there was a woman!” She shot up straight—she knew there’d been something, something creeping around the edges of her memory, but she couldn’t quite…

“A woman?” That caught the Orlesian’s interest, it seemed, and she leaned forward, eyes keen.

Emeline jerked her head in a sharp nod—at last, something at least one of them wanted to hear.

”Yes! In the dark, with the running. There were those things chasing after me, and she just appeared...I think she reached out to me, but I don’t remember what happened, it just…” She paused, eyes searching blindly as she tried to remember before she exhaled, frustrated. “Goes black.”  

Still, something in what she’d said seemed to have an effect on even the Seeker, who appeared to have calmed.

“Go to the forward camp, Leliana,” Cassandra finally said. Her accent was thick, like honey wrapping around each word before letting it go. Her eyes, though not flashing with anger as they had been, were considerably less sweet. “I will take her to the rift.”

“Wait, what? What’s that?” Emeline stared up at Cassandra, eyes snapping to Leliana as she nodded and retreated to whatever the forward camp was, and back again. “Excuse me, Seeker, but what’s a _rift_?” She tried her best to lean more towards sweet and deferential, less towards panicked and swiftly veering towards hysterical.  

“It...is best if you see it for yourself.” Cassandra only gave her a passing glance from under her brows as she unlocked Emeline’s shackles, leading her to the door.

Somehow, Emeline couldn’t quite find it in herself to be reassured.

The harsh light of midday hit her face like a slap, rendering her blind for a moment as her eyes struggled to adjust. The cold was no better—her robes were no match for a Frostback winter, mended and re-mended and finally fashioned into a mockery of a mercenary’s coat over worn woolen trousers, stolen from a line, with knees so thin she could feel where the dungeon’s floor had rubbed her skin raw. The sour sweat on her body, merely uncomfortable before, now felt like she’d just rubbed herself down with ice water. If she’d been anywhere else, with anyone else, she might have cast a quick warming spell. In her present company, she merely resigned herself to her shivers, clenching her teeth against chattering as she blinked into the sunlight.

That was when she saw it.

She had expected some sort of chasm, perhaps, perfectly suited to tossing over imprisoned mages who proved useless, or maybe an oddly named instrument of torture. What she found was a roiling vortex in the sky, a league away and thousands of feet overhead but so massive it dwarfed the mountains towering over the valley. It crackled and churned with that green magic, the very same as the stuff torturing her arm as it pleased, and something in Emeline’s stomach chilled into a cold, hard stone as she realized—green, like spirit magic.

Green, like the shifting hills and mists of her dreams.

Green, like the Fade.  

“We call it the Breach.” Cassandra’s voice, as filled with resignation as awe, broke through her thoughts. “It is a tear into the world of demons, and it is growing larger with each passing hour. It is not the only one of its kind, just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.”

“An explosion did that?” Emeline boggled at the sky, all deference and discomfort forgotten. “Maker’s balls, _how?_ ”

“We had hoped _you_ would tell us that. What we know is that it is of the greatest importance that it is closed, and soon. Unless we act, the breach may grow until it swallows the world.”

It appeared the Fade had a fine-tuned sense for dramatic timing, as just then, Emeline’s hand flared all over again. The shock of it had her tumbling forward, breathing fast and hard. Cassandra ran to keep her from falling on her face, roughly shoving her back up onto her knees and keeping her steady. She waited a moment, allowing Emeline to catch her breath.

“Every time the Breach expands, your mark grows with it—and it _is_ killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, but there isn’t much time. Do you understand?”

“ _It_ —you mean this thing stuck in my hand.” Emeline eyed the traitorous appendage. “What exactly do you think it can do?”

“Close the Breach.” Cassandra’s eyes narrowed as she glanced back at the rift. “Whether that’s true is something we will discover shortly—if you will cooperate.” The look on her face made Emeline think that the if was more for her peace of mind than anything; the likelihood of her being able to refuse was no doubt smaller than the chance they would just let her run back off into apostatehood, scot-free. The illusion of a choice was often more persuasive than no choice at all, after all.  

“And what, precisely, do you expect me to do with it?” Emeline grunted, swallowing thickly as she stared up at Cassandra through her lashes, trying to stretch her hand as best she could. “Am I just supposed to wave it around at the giant green bumhole in the sky and, what, hope something happens? ‘Hello there, chum, d’you mind clenching up a bit there, jolly good,’ or something?” That pain throbbing through her arm, and the headache that was just now beginning to feel like an ice pick in her skull, had weakened her resolve to meekness, and she couldn’t find it in herself to feel especially worried about it anymore. They clearly needed her and probably wouldn’t take the risk of cutting her off from the Fade—yet, anyway. She was also, apparently, dying as they spoke, so if there was any moment to mouth off at a Seeker…well. Seize the day and all that.

And it appeared, by the increasingly irritated look on Cassandra’s face, and the telling lack of words coming out of her mouth, that that was exactly what they expected of her. Probably fewer ‘jolly goods’, though.

 _They have absolutely no bloody idea what they’re doing_ , Emeline suddenly thought, swallowing down a wild, nervous giggle. _I **am** their last hope._

_Maker save them, poor sods._

She sighed then, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, I’m not...of course I’ll help. I’ll do whatever I can, though I honestly don’t even know what that is.”

Cassandra eyed her for a long moment before giving a sharp nod. She helped Emeline to her feet, her grip not quite as rough as it had been.

“Good. Then we need to be on our way—there isn’t much time.”

* * *

Cassandra led her through the streets of Haven, past the bitter-mouthed villagers, past the makeshift tents for the wounded and past the debris, past the craters created by the rocks wreathed in green flames that fell from the sky and brought death in their wake. Cassandra pontificated on why they all glared at her, the whole lot of them mean-eyed and jeering, but it hardly took a scholar to know that a mage, an explosion, and a dead Divine made people a bit shirty, at the very best, and Emeline didn’t see the point in dwelling on it. Still, she found herself grateful, in a way, for the Seeker’s armored grip at her back, speeches or no.

A slip of a knife to her bindings left her free once they were outside the village proper—and no doubt, the politics of allowing the supposed slayer of Her Holiness to appear unleashed was as much a consideration as protecting the public from a rogue apostate. Emeline had only a moment to stare in shock at her wrists, rubbed red and nearly bleeding against the bone from shackles and then rope against raw skin. Blackened dirt crusted along the edges of where the metal had rested.

“Open the gate!” Cassandra called out to the guards up ahead. She started forward, glancing back at Emeline. “We’re heading to the valley—follow me, and stay close.”

They wound their way down the snow-covered path, dodging fleeing soldiers and the odd remnant of battle here and there—fires, overturned wagons, a body broken and mangled and covered in frost. Emeline struggled to keep up as best she could—the rift, and her hand, flared and spit out that evil magic twice more on the way, and jogging along came second to just standing upright at times. To her credit, Cassandra slowed and helped her, gentler than she had been back in the dungeon, though Emeline knew any worry for her was really just worry for what, exactly, the Breach might do if she finally just up and keeled over.

They were making to cross a bridge over the frozen river when it hit—a massive ball of rock and Fade-fire, hurtling out of the Rift itself and into the scarred, frozen land below. The sound of the thing—like nothing she’d ever heard, like a knife whipping through the air before the BOOM of the crash, all-encompassing and all around her, a massive fist slamming through a wall but somehow everywhere at once. The screams and shrieks of the soldiers ahead cut short as the explosion hit, taken over by the thunder of the collapsing stones all around them.

She thought she felt Cassandra grabbing for her, and then she was hurtling too, falling down and down towards the ice below. Instinct kicked in and she managed to cast a barrier, wild and unstable, around herself as she grabbed at her head, trying to cover herself as best she could as the debris slammed into her. The rough pumice of ancient stone scraped down her cheek as she choked on dirt and dust, and something jabbed into a rib, knocking the breath from her. 

The whole world had fallen silent except for a high-pitched whining somewhere deep in her ears and the pounding of her heart keeping time as she fell, and she wished, briefly, that before she died she’d had the courage to tell the Seeker she could just shove her stupid, green Fade fist right up her—

The ice hit her then, and if she’d been able to hear anything at all, she would have heard the crunch of her knees slamming into water, solid as any rock, accompanying her own shrieking. She slid and slipped across the surface along with the remnants of the bridge, finally skidding to a stop just in time to see the demons—unearthly, cursed things—gliding towards her. A low whine started in the back of her throat, and she hurried to stand, to turn and run, but her weakened knee gave out on the ice, and she stumbled back down in a coughing fit as the two foul beings encroached.

“...ay back!” Cassandra’s voice suddenly pierced the fog, and Emeline started, managing to scramble back on her rump as she coughed and spat out pink-tinged spittle, blackened with dust. The Seeker leapt out in front of her then, all bearish strength and feline grace in one, and slammed first one demon and then the other with her shield as she slashed with her sword. The weapon made contact with the first demon, and a thick, oily liquid, the color of which Emeline could only think of as rot, pure and putrid, slid out of it’s side.

She spied it then, out of the corner of her eye—the stave, intact and just...waiting, like it knew she would be there. Cassandra seemed to have things well in hand, but still, if she fell, or another demon just appeared, or something, which given the year she’d had, let alone the last few days seemed entirely possible...

So she ran for it. Or limped, more to the point, but it was a fairly quick sort of limping, and it ended with her clutching her side in one hand, and a standard-issue Circle stave in the other as she sized up the situation through watering eyes.

First—another barrier, elegant now, and controlled, falling into place over Cassandra as she whirled and stabbed and bled. Then, the familiar sting of cold flowing to her fingertips and she panted frost into the air—a flash of ice, shooting up from the ground to encase the second demon as Cassandra finished off the first, a living statue waiting to be shattered.

And it was, as Cassandra lunged at it, making swift work of the thing until it gave it’s last ungodly shriek and melted back into nothing. Emeline clutched her stave to her chest, staring at the now empty space with eyes huge, heart in her throat and almost grinning with it.

“Did you see that?” she asked, frayed nerves seeming to have transformed into outright giddiness. “I never got to fight before! Well, not really, you know, just some glyphs and things when I had to, and the barriers and all, my barriers are always bang-on.” She spared half a glance at Cassandra as the Seeker began to stride back to her side. “I was just always tending to the healing and things—d’you know, I’ve never iced anything but a leg—”

“ _Drop your weapon_.” Cassandra’s voice strained as she stopped just a few feet away. She pointed her sword at Emeline, still gleaming with fresh viscera and muck.  

It appeared she wasn’t particularly interested in prior battle experiences.

Emeline drew in a breath, confusion bleeding into annoyance. She’d only meant to help, of course, and obviously she wasn’t going to help the demons that wanted to _kill_ her—she was exhausted and frightened, not completely mad—and she’d been putting her perfectly executed barriers on Cassandra, which was hardly a reason to think she was going to try to hurt her _now_ , and... and... and…   

And she exhaled, sagging a little as she nodded.

“Fine. Have it your way, then.” _And you’re perfectly welcome you snotty upjumped harp—_

But Cassandra just watched her for a moment before she let out her own sigh. Her sword dropped to her side.

“No, you should keep it. We both know you don’t need a staff, and I cannot protect you.” Looking vaguely uncomfortable, she put her sword back in its hilt before she conceded, “I should remember you agreed to come willingly. You had every opportunity to fight against me just then, and yet you didn’t.”

“I...well, thank you,” Emeline replied. The surprise in her voice was palpable. Perhaps her Seeker wasn’t so unreasonable after all; that would be a shock, in her experience, but then she’d had a lot of shocks lately, so why not one more?

She waited a beat as she watched Cassandra reach into a small pack strapped to her belt, really taking stock of the woman for the first time. Well-made armor, probably expensive, though it’d seen it’s share of wear. Short, no-nonsense hair, black as night and cut for convenience—save for what appeared to be some sort of braid encircling her head, a puzzling choice in Emeline’s estimation. High, elegant cheekbones tapered down to a sharp jaw and a strong chin, framing a thin but well-shaped mouth and dark, slightly tilted eyes. A smattering of lines on the brow. No smile lines, though, which wasn’t surprising.

A streak of daring took hold of her then.

“My barriers _were_ excellent, though, weren’t they?” she ventured, the tease playing at the corners of her lips.   

Cassandra’s brow raised, her fine patrician nose flaring as—Emeline would have bet her boots on it, and she dearly loved her boots—she quelled a snort.  

“It appears you have a...knack for them, yes,” she replied stiffly, handing over a number of vials from her pack.

“Best in my class,” Emeline chirped, taking the proffered vials. They were filled with a familiar, blood-red liquid, swirling lazily in its containers—healing potions, and none too soon. All but one were tucked away in her own various pockets and pouches; the last was down her gullet in one long gulp, her face pulling at the taste, though she sighed in relief as the aches and throbs that plagued her began to fade.

“Use them sparingly. We won’t be able to replenish our stock until we reach the camp, and perhaps not even then.” Cassandra gazed up at the sky before squaring her shoulders. “Maker knows what we will face.”

She was already turning to lead on, crunching through the wreckage of stone and dirt-greyed snow to follow the frozen stream ahead. Brushing her fingers experimentally across her lip—mended, now, and back to a reasonable size; her wrists, too, were smooth and free of pain, she noted—Emeline gave one last look back at where the shades had melted into the ether before following behind.

* * *

 

“And I just...appeared? Out of nowhere?”

“Out of a rift, a much smaller one. It closed soon after.”

The pair had made it upstream, fighting demons (and one very confused and surprisingly vicious fox) along the way, and they trudged through the snow, climbing ever further up the mountains. The whip of the wind at her cheeks, the sting of her feet in increasingly soggy boots, and a boldness brought about by saving Cassandra from at least one demon's crack to the skull had compelled Emeline to inquire about that warming spell. Cassandra had—begrudgingly and with a huff that made Emeline think she probably had rather strong opinions about the frailty of people who needed things like fingers that weren’t frozen into icicles—allowed her to drape them both in the simple enchantment.

Still, whatever her personal objections, it didn’t pass Emeline’s notice that the Seeker actually became rather chatty once her poor nose was no longer red as a cherry. Funny, that.

“And then I just...fell. Right flat on my face? What a horrible first impression,” Emeline frowned, worrying the spot where her lip had been split. Cassandra snorted, but didn’t deny it.

“You’d think I’d remember something about the whole thing, wouldn’t you? Obviously something absolutely dreadful had to have happened for me to get this.” She stretched her hand about in front of her face—it had been quiet for probably near twenty minutes, and though she had to wonder what exactly the Maker would want in decimating an ancient temple’s worth of people, killing his highest and most holy of servants, and giving a gardener a magical hand and some short-term memory loss as a parting gift, she thanked him for the reprieve anyway.

Cassandra glanced back over her shoulder. “There’s an apostate that’s joined us, an elf. He looked you over while you were unconscious. He seems to know quite a bit about the Fade, though Maker knows where he learned it.” She leaned into a sudden gust of wind, her voice rising over the mountain gale. “Still, he is likely your best chance at an answer, for now—we have few mages with us, as you can imagine.”

Cassandra slowed then, perking up as she cupped an ear.

“Do you hear that? They’re fighting!” The sounds of men and women shouting were indeed carried down over the rise not fifty feet ahead. Emeline couldn’t muster up the same enthusiasm for the prospect of yet more shades and wisps clawing at her hair and striking at her eyes, but she dutifully picked up the pace as best she could as Cassandra beckoned her on.

Her feet were sinking into the snow near a foot deep as she tried to keep pace, and more of the stuff fell into her gaping boots, better suited to puttering about in good, rich Marcher earth than scaling a Southern mountain range in cruel winter. She hissed at the cold grinding into her hole-ridden stockings; her warming spell was fading, her sleeves even starting to stiffen from the melted snowflakes freezing back into ice. 

“We’re not far now, the camp is just up ahead!” Cassandra called back over the wind.

“Oh. D’you think they have hot baths?”

“What?”

“Nothing!”

Cassandra gave her a queer look before holding out a hand, helping Emeline scramble up an embankment and over to where she saw...yes, of course. More fighting. More demons. And in the middle of it all, what looked like a miniature version of the rift in the sky—less swirling clouds, though, more a sort of strange, gaseous mist, out of which was currently pouring more of those shades, grasping and moaning and clawing.

She suddenly desperately wanted nothing more than to curl up and go back to sleep in that dark, dank dungeon, shackles and all.

Instead, as Cassandra jumped down into the fray and charged ahead, she breathed, grinding a palm against an oncoming headache before she began to cast.

Barrier after barrier, first on Cassandra and a stocky dwarf she ran to defend, then on the soldiers, finally on a tall, lanky elf, bald as an Anders monk and fierce as one too, by the looks of it. Emeline watched him slamming into shades with his staff between lightning bolts with such fluidity and grace she almost nearly lost her head and just stared, agape, til she caught herself and refreshed his protections. He might have glanced up—you could feel a barrier washing over you, of course, like warm slippery liquid dripping down your skin, and she’d heard mages felt it more than most—but he took no notice of her, so intent was he on his task.

She surveyed the fight from her vantage point atop the ledge overlooking the scuffle below; the dwarf and his strange contraption had things under control, and Cassandra had whirled to help a scout fight off one last shade—it gave a sickening shriek and gurgle as her sword pierced its side. Emeline made to encase it in a sheath of ice when the elf seemed to cast some sort of force magic in its direction. The whoop of the air slamming into it caused the stones to tremble on the ground right as the dwarf landed one last arrow in the back of its head. The thing gave a final, gasping screech as it melted into nothing and with that, it seemed it was over.

“Er...right, are we all done then?” Emeline called, carefully hopping down the ledge. “No more nasties hiding round the corner or anything?”

“Not quite.” The elf had hurried over, and before Emeline could reply, he had snatched her hand, pulling her to where the small rift had collapsed into a bizarre sort of breathing, pulsating green jewel in the air, growing and then collapsing back into itself. But then it shifted, tendrils of vapor unfurling out from it’s center, like poison rashvine looking to curl around careless limbs.  

Emeline did not like the looks of that. She did not like the looks of that at _all_.

“Wait, _stop it_ , what are you—,” she stumbled after him, trying to shake herself from his grasp or dig her heels into the ground, anything to keep from getting closer to the rift. It didn’t work; he was strong, his grip near bruising—no wilting tower academic, him.

“Before more come through!” he shouted, and he thrust her hand up to the rift and—

The _power_ of the thing, the mark in her hand, stopped her dead as it seemed to latch onto the tear in the air, channeling it. Her arm wrenched and then froze, locked into place, as the rift roared and whined around her til she nearly stopped breathing. The feeling—it was horrible, and strange, and somehow a relief all at the same time. More to the point, it bloody well hurt, and the elf at her side had to hold her shoulder steady as they watched the rift churn and hum it’s strange song until finally it exploded in a flash of light.

And then, like the demons before it, it was gone.

“What in the Void was that? What did you _do?_ ” Emeline gaped, stumbling back and dropping her staff to grab hold of her arm as the elf let go; it had gone limp as wet linen. Its job done, the mark had gone quiet, just a faint glow in the palm of her hand.

“On the contrary, I did nothing,” he replied, smiling faintly. He now stood with his hands clasped behind his back, as though they’d just been having a pleasant chat about how the peonies had been getting on. “The credit is yours.”

His voice was cool and deep, she noticed as she caught her breath, his accent strange but pleasant. Cultured, certainly. His clothes, however, were anything but—torn in places, wrapped and mended in others not unlike her own, but nothing about him said Circle mage, not for a second.  

Emeline stared at him for a moment as she filed that particular discongruity away for later, her head aching like she’d gotten into the Chantry wine cellars. Squinting, she glanced over at an unforthcoming Cassandra and then back again, batting a stray hair from her eyes.

“I - wait, what?”

The elf coughed, as though holding back a laugh.  

“Ah. Well, it appears as though whatever magic opened the rift in the sky also placed that mark upon your hand.” He nodded at the glow pulsing between her fingers, his voice taking on a scholarly tone she recognized from Ostwick. “I theorized that the mark might be able to close the smaller rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake. And,” he looked above them at the air, now empty save for a smattering of snowflakes, “it seems I was correct.”

“I did that?” Emeline marveled, flexing her hand. “Seeker!” she called, turning round. “You were right, it seems I do just have to wave my hand at the sky! I’m very sorry to have doubted you.”

The Seeker merely blinked before sighing, walking to the elf.

“So we may have been correct after all—do you the mark may close the Breach as well?”

“Possibly. It remains to be seen if it acts as both the sole source and conduit for its power, or if it may need a larger well of magic to draw from to close a rift of such size—”

“Meaning I might not be able to channel enough if it does. Need more magic, that is,” Emeline broke in. Her head swam with thoughts of what, exactly, happened to bodies that attempted to contain more magic than they were able. She had a brief but disturbing image of a grape swelling until it burst it’s skin.

“It is possible. But I do think it’s likely that your mark is the key to our predicament, whatever the particularities of the application.”

“Good to know. Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.”

It was the dwarf piping up now, and as she turned Emeline wasn’t exactly sure where to look, the enormous gold chain nestled in a veritable nest of chest hair or at the way he seemed to be... _fondling_ his strange bow contraption.

She chose the latter.

“Nice...crossbow?” she offered, watching as he sidled up to Cassandra. He looked, quite frankly and in her estimation, like a miniature-sized version of a penny dreadful scoundrel, the sort you never, ever play cards against. The wink of his earring in the light only furthered the impression, and in truth it seemed rather appropriate—Emeline’s life had, as of late, somehow begun to resemble a poorly plotted and wholly unbelievable novel rather than reality. The characters in it might as well, too.  

“That’s Bianca,” he replied, giving the weapon an affectionate pat. 

“You named your crossbow?”

“Of course. All the best weapons have names, kid.” He smiled, wry and lopsided, brushing some muck from his hands as he eyed his gloves. “But here I am forgetting my manners—Varric Tethras, rogue, storyteller and reluctant adventurer, at your service.” He deigned to give a little bow, only just this side of mocking.

So, a courtly scoundrel, and one very possibly not here of his own design—Cassandra’s little noise of irritation and his goading smirk appeared to confirm that well enough—and by the color and weight of his jewelry, the fine tailoring of his leather, not to mention the sheer opulence of all that golden embroidery on his tunic...a rich one, at that. And that accent...dwarven, to be sure, but she’d eat her left boot if he wasn’t a Marcher.  

Emeline wondered, briefly, if he owned a ship with room for a well-behaved apostate who’d listen to his stories.

She blinked then, returning his smile with one of her own and the merest suggestion of a curtsy.

“Emeline Elisabeta Clotilda Maria Trevelyan, Circle mage and,” she fluttered her fingers with all the pathos she could muster, “reluctant hand-waver. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” No one could feel wary of someone with Clotilda as one of their names, she figured. And she needed all the pity she could get.

“Are you with the Chantry, or…?”  She glanced at Cassandra, who appeared unamused at the very suggestion, and back at Varric, who looked amused enough for the both of them. The elf wasn’t even bothering to hide his chuckling.

“Technically, I’m a prisoner, just like you. But that,” Varric held up a hand as Cassandra started to protest and shot a wink in Emeline’s direction, “is a story for another day. One where we’re not in the ass-end of nowhere with an army of demons trying kill us before lunch.”

“The dwarf is right, we need to keep moving. We are not far from the forward camp, but every minute counts.” Cassandra shot one last reproving look at Varric before setting off down the path. After exchanging bemused glances the rest of them fell behind her like ducklings led by a particularly impatient mother.

“If there are to be introductions, my name is Solas.” The elf had fallen in step with Emeline, a bland sort of good humor mixed with cool curiosity across his face. His voice gave no hint of the fatigue that lined his eyes. 

Emeline was startled out of her thoughts—veering treacherously close to the conclave, and the nothing that remained of it—before arranged her features in a mirror of his own. 

“You’re the apostate that kept me alive, then?” She winced at the amusement that curled his lips. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean...we’re all apostates now, aren’t we? I just meant to thank you.”

“You are most welcome,” Solas replied, his head inclining politely. “I am glad to see you’re well enough to walk, let alone fight.” He glanced up at the sky, then back at her again. “The magic that binds you to the Breach is fascinating. It is also exceedingly dangerous. It may be of cold comfort under the circumstances, but in this instance the fact that you are a mage very possibly worked in your favor. A person lacking such abilities may not have survived at all.”

Emeline peered up at him, vaguely nonplussed. He was speaking, albeit not unkindly, about her potential death and yet reminded her of nothing so much as her old magical histories teacher, musing about schisms in the orthodoxy of thaumaturgical theory or whatnot. 

“Well, _strictly_ speaking, if I weren’t a mage I’d probably be back home in Ostwick having a lovely afternoon tea with some of those crumbly little biscuits right about now, so...” She shrugged, suddenly too tired to care overly much about first impressions or the niggling feeling that she was being _graded_ somehow, if not on a paper than on...something. She nudged a rock out of her path, watching it roll down into a snowbank. Varric and Cassandra were arguing just up ahead, something she was beginning to suspect was a not infrequent occurrence. 

“Ah. No doubt a crumbly little biscuit, as you put it, would have been far more preferable than our current situation,” he replied, dry amusement coloring his voice.

When Emeline looked back up at him, she found him regarding her with what looked far too close to pity for her comfort. Internally, she bristled. Outwardly, she flashed him a smile, all white teeth glinting in the pale glare of the snow. 

“Quite,” she chirped, punctuating her agreement with a sharp nod. 

Solas’ only reply was another bland smile, a thoughtful little hum in the back of his throat. It was friendly enough as far as conversation between two relative strangers went.

Still, when she turned away, it was with the uneasy sense that, for whatever reason, she had just been weighed on some invisible scale—and she had been found wanting.


	3. Out of the Frying Pan

**_"Trevelyan, look out!”_ **

_ She’s not sure who’s shouting; it could be the dwarf, or the elf or a scout or maybe just a figment of her imagination playing amid the flashes of electricity spackled black across her sight, the wicked laughter of the demon trailing her across the cavern, the taste of copper dripping from her nose into her split mouth. It’s all Emeline can do to stand upright as the demon’s lightning whips out to lash her across her back a second time, and then Varric is barrelling forward, hurling her to the ground and out of the way. Cassandra’s running too, running to distract the monster with her taunts and threats.  Emeline gasps, heaving herself upwards as the whip retreats for another strike, and she grabs for Varric’s hand to pull him along. She scrambles for purchase, to run again even as she’s muttering another barrier in place, feels the warmth coating them both in soothing, leaf-green light. It’s shaky this time, ragged around the edges to match its mistress, but it will do. It has to. _

Emeline woke with gasp, breath sucking in like she was drowning—but no, her mouth was like cotton, which wouldn’t have been right. And her skin was warm, nearly hot, from the heat of a fire crackling nearby. Strange. Memory and dreams wove together as she tried to recall what, exactly, had happened to her, where she’d even been and where the others were now. 

She blinked slowly, groggy as she considered the ceiling above her—unfamiliar, strewn with drying herbs, the odd stray cobweb where a broom couldn’t quite reach. Not a jot of light managed to shine through leaking thatch or decaying wood—the wood slats were sealed snug against the weather.  This was no abandoned farmstead or collapsing cottage. Stranger still, she realized, her linens were freshly changed, smelling of fresh straw and the wind they’d dried in. 

_ So _ , she thought,  **_definitely_ ** _ not with the mages anymore. _

The scent of lavender, elfroot and lady’s laurel tickled her nose then—the herbs above, she realized. Healing herbs, which boded well for whoever owned the little cottage—Emeline assumed that, say, Templars with a grudge probably wouldn’t keep house quite so nice. Emeline let out a breath as her heart calmed, the phantom stench of blood and charred skin beginning to fade even as the cackle of the demon lingered.

“Forgive me my lady!” The sudden squeak to her left had Emeline jolting up, the calm of just a minute before fleeing like a startled deer. Her heart slowed as she squinted through the shaft of light slanting through a crack in the nearby window’s shutters. Cowering in the center of the room was an elf, a spindly little thing, even for a people prone to looking in need of a good meal or two. The girl—and she was a girl, Emeline could see, she couldn’t have been much past her fourteenth summer—could have done with a long rest in some clean blankets herself, by the looks of it. 

“I didn’t mean to wake you, m’lady, I swear it, it’s just I was sent here by the healer with his fresh stock, is all.” The girl’s voice trembled, and for one terrifying moment Emeline was worried she was going to burst into tears. She wished, for all the world, that she had a sweet or maybe just a strong drink to offer her.

“Oh, well...there, there, then.” She slid down from the bed, narrowly avoiding tripping over the tangle of her sheets and bedshirt, and reached out a hand to pat the girl on the back. “I was already awake, wasn’t I? So there’s no need to make all this fuss, is there?” 

“I...I s’pose not, m’lady?” The girl cocked her head just so, eyes askance. Confusion colored her voice. 

“Exactly!” Crisis averted, Emeline gave her another awkward pat. “So...what’s your name, then?”

The elf sat up a bit straighter.

“Moira, m’lady,” she said, wary.

“You know, it’s been almost fifteen years since anyone’s called me that.” Emeline’s lips flattened, and she sat back on her heels. “I don’t think I was ever much of a lady before then, and I certainly wasn’t one after, so there’s no need to start it back up again, I don’t think, do you?” Before Moira could answer, Emeline stuck out her hand. “You can call me Emeline. If we were back in the Circle you’d stick an Enchanter on there as well, but we’re not and now any rank I’ve ever managed to earn is about as useful as a pair of knickers on a fish, so.”

Moira stared at her for a moment, her eyes flicking back and forth between Emeline’s cheery smile and her outstretched hand. Finally she took it in hers, giving it a timid shake.

“...nice to meet you, m’l—I mean, Emeline. Miss.”

“It’s very nice to meet you as well, Moira,” Emeline replied. She released the girl’s hand, and smoothed her shirt out over her lap before looking back up. 

“So, now that we properly know each other and are, I’m very sure, on the path to becoming the dearest of friends, I have a rather awkward question to ask.” She paused. “Moira, where exactly am I?”

“Wha—miss, I mean, Emeline—you’re at  _ Haven _ .” Moira was beginning to look as though she was beginning to very seriously consider the possibility Emeline was, perhaps, just a little bit touched. A residual effect of being just a little bit dead, maybe.

“Oh! Well, that’s exciting.” Emeline looked around the room again, seeing it in a new light. “Y’know, these really are very nice little cottages, now that I’m allowed inside one of them. Very cozy, aren’t they?” Her audience nodded, on surer footing—this cottage, in particular, was especially homey. “But, and here’s the thing...I’m curious as to how I got here? I  _ know _ ,” she continued, mournful, “it’s like I said, I’m embarrassed to have to even ask, but I seem to have—how should I put this?  _ Misplaced _ a few things. Memory-type things. I’m sorry to admit that I’m not exactly sure what happened between now and back up on the mountains, other than it was dreadful cold and that I wanted to ask that dwarf if his necklace had some sort of warmth enchantment because it would come in dead useful in so many situations, don’t you think?” 

Emeline paused for breath. Moira was staring, unabashed now, but she didn’t seem to mind. 

“Although,” she continued, “I do remember something about a demon of...something. Pride, maybe? Or Fear. Something with a very rude temperament, anyway, but then that’s most of them, really.  Absolutely  _ enormous _ —”

“I don’t know anything about that, miss,” Moira cut in, sounding a little panicked at the mention of demons, and enormous ones at that. “But...they brought you down from the mountains, and e’eryone thought you were dead! The humans did, anyway, but Solas, he didn’t, he helped the herbalist to bring you back—I had to bring them their meals, but he wouldn’t nearly touch his, not like the other one. He didn’t sleep much, either, I don’t think, I worried something awful about him. Just,” she hurried on, a flush creeping up her cheeks, “I worried he wouldn’t be able to save you, is all, if he wasn’t taking proper care of himself.”

_ Someone’s got a crush _ , Emeline thought, not unkindly. 

“Really? That sounds like an awful lot of work, I bet I’d’ve keeled over after the first night. He was very lucky to have you helping, I think. We both were,” she smiled, trying not to wonder too hard if she had  _ actually _ been dead or if everyone had just thought she was. She could nearly feel the lashing of the demon’s lightning across her back, wrapping around her wrists and dragging her— 

_ —she stumbles forward, Solas’ fresh barrier giving her a moment’s respite from the worst of the pain now that all of her healing draughts are gone, half down her gullet and the other half smashed across the stone courtesy of a phalanx of shades attacking her as one. The rift’s been opened and half-closed near half a dozen times and her entire arm is screaming at her, but the demons won’t go, they just keep pouring through, and all it seems to do is shock them into stillness for a few very brief moments, and they seem to be getting briefer and briefer. _

_ Still, she can see the demon at the corner of her sight, and he’s weaker, she knows he is—he’s down on one knee and Cassandra, Maker bless her, is hurtling herself at him over and over like an enraged banshee, her sword cutting its way through the hardened leather and bone that passes for its skin. Varric isn’t faring as well; he’s nearly down for the count, and keeping his distance accordingly, all his taunts and jokes gone as he silently, desperately  shoots arrow after arrow at anything that comes near. Solas is something else entirely, a force of nature, but even he’s flagging—his barriers are coming slower now, and Emeline has seen him falter when a spell just won’t come, his mana nearly tapped out.  _

_ But none of it matters, because her hand is burning and she has one more left in her, she’s sure of it, one more chance at sealing that stupid tear in the veil before it kills them all. After that? Who knows, and she doesn’t want to think about it because that leads to hesitation, and by now she knows hesitation leads to nowhere good. So, with the attention of the demon finally distracted, she takes a deep breath, steps forward with  her arm raised and--  _

“Miss?” 

“What?” Emeline started, looking at the floor and then up at Moira. She shivered. “Ah, right, sorry, I think a bit of it’s coming back now is all. Anyway, so I was carried down from the mountain, and you helped with a bangup healing job, and that was...how long ago?”

“Seven days today, miss.”

“Seven…” Emeline exhaled. “Well, I suppose it’s good news they didn’t just kill me and be done with it, then,” she muttered.

Moira pulled back at that, shocked. 

“But miss, they wouldn’t’ve! With you being the Herald and all—the whole town’s been praying and reciting the Chant for you,” she insisted, reaching out to squeeze Emeline’s hands in her own before she seemed to catch herself and drew back again.

“I—wait, come again?” Emeline’s head cocked to the side, like a vaguely confused spaniel.

“I said we were praying and waiting on you to wake, miss, everyone’s heard how you walked out o’ the Fade by the blessing of Andraste herself. Not a one of us would have wished Andraste’s Herald any harm,” Moira cried, as though she was worried about the Maker smiting her right on the spot. She fidgeted too, like even she knew that might not have been strictly true. Still, if it wasn’t, she kept it to herself. 

Emeline blinked. 

Then she blinked again.

And again.

“I’m...the  _ Herald _ . Of Andraste. As in, the Maker’s bride Andraste,” she said slowly, drawing out each word like it was cold molasses.

“Well, aren’t you?”

Moira was looking up at her with her enormous eyes, her fingers near white with the force of their anxious grip on each other. Two thoughts occurred to Emeline—the first that she had absolutely no idea what this poor girl was going on about. The second was the inkling that, somehow, this baffling conclusion—whoever came up with it—was very likely exactly what was keeping her in a cozy cabin, conveniently sans chains and shackles, with fresh linens and a roaring fire and what she thought was a bowl of oranges on that far desk over there. 

_ Ridiculous _ , she thought absently.  _ Oranges in the Frostbacks in the middle of Wintersmarch and a war, to boot.  _

She did dearly love oranges, though.

So she looked Moira dead in the eye as she straightened her shoulders and smiled kindly, a beatific vision in her borrowed linen nightdress, the fire creating a halo of light around her curls. She tried to ignore how the floor was digging into her knees.

“Yes, Moira. Yes, I am.” 

_I’m a bloody heretic and blasphemer is what I am now, on top of everything else, Maker’s balls_ , she thought. _Chantry’s going to love that, but there’s_ _no going back now, then, is there, Em?_

“And I think I should like to...reflect quietly on what you’ve told me,” she continued, rising from the floor, leading Moira with her. “So perhaps don’t mention this conversation to anyone—surely Solas and…” she floundered, not entirely sure who else had made it out of the demon encounter or who, exactly, counted themselves as her new friend’s employer.

“The Seeker?” Moira helpfully supplied.

Emeline felt her eye twitch. She blinked it away.

“Yes, the Seeker, will want to speak with me about what I’ve...experienced, of course, but I’d rather they see me  when I’ve had some time to consider all that, ah, has led me here, you understand?”

“Of course, m’la—Emeline,” Moira nodded quickly. “It’s just the lady Cassandra said that she was to be notified right away when you awakened, and—”

“And I’m absolutely going to  meet her in due course, won’t I? If you’d just tell me where she can be found, I’ll certainly make my way to her, only,” she leaned in, conspiratorial, “I don’t think it would be  _ quite _ proper for Andraste’s herald to be meeting with anyone in their bedclothes, do you?” Emeline nearly winked, but thought better of it—there was, on occasion, such a thing as laying it all on just a little  _ too _ thick.

“Oh! Of course not, miss, I wasn’t thinking—I’ll leave you, miss, Master Adan will be wondering where I’ve got off to anyway.” She gave a coltish little curtsy, wobbling in her nerves. “I beg your leave, miss, and I—I also beg your pardon for...for taking up so much of your—”

“ _ Moira, _ ” Emeline cut in, exhaustion leading to impatience bleeding in around the edges. 

The girl’s mouth snapped shut, her ears burning at the tips.

“It was very nice to meet you,” Emeline continued more gently. “And you don’t need to bow and scrape in front of me. I’ve done enough of it myself.” 

Moira nodded shyly, perhaps a little confused but maybe not so skittish now. She straightened a bit, turning for the door.

“Oh, here!” The elf turned back and just nearly caught the orange tossed her way. She stumbled back a step before righting herself, and as she raised her wide eyes to the wild-haired, half-clothed mage before her, she couldn’t help but stroke the pebbled, fragrant skin with one ragged thumb. Emeline didn’t doubt that it had been a good while since she’d had a taste of such a luxury all the way down here.

“Miss?”

“You’re looking a bit peaky,” Emeline shrugged, nonchalant. “If  this Adan gives you any grief about it, you can tell him I’m bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and…well, handing out oranges, I suppose. Just him, though, not the Seeker and the rest, remember?” She raised a brow— _ our little secret, hmm? _

“I—of course,” Moira stuttered. She glanced down at the fruit in her hands and back up again. “And thank you...Emeline.” 

Emeline gave a little wave as she watched the girl go, orange clutched to her breast and a secret little smile on her face. When the door clicked shut, her own smile finally sagged along with her shoulders.  She stared at the rough planks of the door for a long moment before hiding her face in her hands, exhaling hard.

_ “Fuck.” _

* * *

It took Emeline near half an hour to rouse herself out of her daze, during which she slumped against the side of her bed and mostly vacillated between wondering what desperate, twitterpated nincompoop had decided that declaring a mage the herald of anything, let alone Andraste, was a good idea, and willing away that familiar and always alarming rise in her heart rate every time she thought about actually exiting the cabin to find out.

She thought, very briefly, of the mages who hadn’t survived, who hadn’t woken in warm clean beds with their injuries as good as new. She hadn’t really known most of them—the Ostwick delegation had been small, as the Circle itself had been, consisting of only herself and two other Enchanters for their ties to the nobility, and a few Senior Enchanters known for their cool heads and with working ties to other Circles, the passing of research information and such. 

Most of the others were a bit too old and too grand to bother with anyone without a Senior in front of their name outside of the classroom—of the lot she’d only really known Pippa and Merrick, and she’d only liked Pippa. She could be a bit dull, it was true enough, but she used her family’s paltry monthly allowance to have the Tranquil purchase treats for the children down at the market, and had never had an unkind word to say about anyone, not even the Templars. 

Some people found her tiresome but Emeline had always rather admired her, in a way. She’d always thought Pippa must have found some secret to existing the way they did, to never even appear to have a cross thought about anything. Emeline’d asked her once if there was meditation involved, perhaps something terribly exotic, from the Anders maybe (they’d been around thirteen at the time and Emeline had recently discovered a treasure trove of cheap adventure novels in the back stacks of the library—she’d been devouring the second book, in which the main heroine, noble lady  _ cum _ archeologist Countess Cerynise de Woodiwiss was having a passionate affair with an Anders monk when she wasn’t escaping peril at the hands of an ancient Tevinter curse in some tomb or another.)  

Pippa had just laughed, and wondered how she always got such wild ideas in her head, and asked her if she wanted to go to the kitchens to see if they had made any of those honey’d cinnamon biscuits out of the day’s dough scraps.

And now she was dead. Emeline considered that new fact for about as long as it took her throat to feel thick and sore before she sternly reminded herself that tears did no one a jot of good. 

_ What’s done is done and none of them will come back over your spilt tears, and all you’ll get for your trouble is a pair of swollen eyes,  _ she thought, and she knew the truth of it.  And it was her own stunted grief coupled, as it always was, with the nagging sense that she should just be  _ doing _ something that finally shook the malaise off her like a dog shaking the water from its fur. 

So she got to her feet, the floor warm and just a little rough on her bare skin, and began to search, for what she wasn’t entirely sure. Clues to a puzzle she hadn’t quite worked out yet—why, exactly, she was here at all, or what the motivation was for keeping her in such luxurious accommodations. And they were luxurious, by her standards at least. A year she’d spent running and fighting, or trying not to more often than not, and any room that had a fire that was more flame than smoke and no holes in the roof was practically an Orlesian palace, by her mark. 

Her little respite from the cold and snow didn’t turn up much. She found no shackles or binding ropes under the bed, nothing to send her running to the nearest exit, and that was a relief. The corner nearest the end of her bed turned up a wobbly “Markus was here” carefully carved into the rough wood, down low enough that a bored little boy might have hoped his mother or father wouldn’t have noticed. Emeline hoped he’d succeeded. The desk was nothing but candles and some blank parchment, decent quality but nothing special, and a quill for writing but no ink to dip it in. The absurd oranges were still absurd, but tasty, too, and it scented the air with a warm spice that left her mouth wet as an Ostwick spring. She quickly devoured one, then began working on her second as she peered up onto freshly-dusted shelves and ran her fingers over the parts she couldn’t see. She gave herself and a dozing spider a shock, but that was the extent of its surprises. 

The rest of the shelves held the odd knick-knack, a roughly carved hound or two. In one dark corner a stone dragon towered all of two inches over its kingdom of barren cedarwood. Emeline stared at it for a long moment, picking it up and frowning at the make—skilled, but not enough to have come from a practiced sculptor that made their living at it. She had the stray thought that it looked like nothing so much as a talisman, but couldn’t for the life of her imagine what for. It was carefully put back in its place where it crouched, seeming to glare up at her—and she couldn’t help but feel as though she’d trespassed, somehow, with the disturbance of the little statue. 

“There, and I won’t bother you again, will I?” she asked. The dragon had no answer.

The lower shelves were filled with plants, fresh and dried; entirely medicinal, by the looks of them. Extra stores, most likely, and she guessed she’d been the lucky recipient for a fair amount. There was, as to be expected, an abundance of elfroot. The thought of rigging up some sort smoking device occurred to her—she’d had a very stressful last hour or so, after all, and in her opinion she could hardly be blamed—but she could see from the curling of the stems that they hadn’t been cured properly for anything but potions.  Instead she snapped off a few of the fresher leaves to pop in her mouth, the musky grassiness of the herb mingling with the sour sweet of the orange in her mouth.

There were a few books, nothing noteworthy—a popular history of southern Thedas, a children’s herbarium that was rather lacking in information but had an abundance of cheery little illustrations. She flipped through the pages as she ate the last of her orange, smiling at the faded drawings of elfroot and milkdrops and lover’s thistle. Her thin fingers traced the lines of a vining moonflower across the fragile paper, lips curling at the thought of Markus, wherever he was, devouring the author’s brief but effective descriptions of all the boils and rashes an unsuspecting child could get from such pretty flowers. The toxic plants had always been the star of her own little lessons back in Ostwick, the children’s eyes huge as saucers when she got around to describing the way an immature deathroot’s sap could sizzle and hiss on the skin of an unlucky herbalist, or the carnivorous tendencies of a mother’s tongue. 

It was when she gently shut the book that Emeline had the slightly disconcerting thought that she might have put the mysterious Markus and his family out—that their cabin had been turned over for Chantry use or something. It had all the look of a well-tended and well-loved home, small as it was; nothing in disrepair, no lingering smell of disuse and mothballs, just old, oiled pine and years of cookfires. The single bed made perfect sense, to her mind. The boy’d have been on a cot, most likely, pulled out from his parent’s bed in the evening after a supper of mutton stew or mutton roast or whatever it was they ate all the way up here. All anyone in Ferelden ever seemed to eat was mutton, in her limited experience. And cheese. Maker, so much cheese.

_ Poor Markus _ , she thought, and as she shut the book she resolved to make sure it was returned to its rightful owner. She couldn’t do much about his mealtimes, but she could at least give him back his book.

More than an hour had passed by the time Emeline’d finished scouring the cabin and pondering over her findings. The sliver of light peeking through the shutters was her only guide to the passing time—she guessed by it’s shifting across the floor that they were well into the afternoon.

It was in the trunk at the end of her bed that she found her belongings, and more besides. A fresh, clean set of clothing had been provided, along with thick woolen socks and a sort of jerkin, still bitter with the scent of new leather. It was all a bit... beige, she thought, frowning at the fabric, but they looked warm and well-made. The new boots set beside them were alright—good, solid leather, but she could feel her toes pinching just looking at  them. Her own clothes had been laundered and neatly folded, even if a year’s worth of ground-in dirt and grime couldn’t really be completely washed away. Someone had taken the care to place sprigs of dried lavender between the pieces. Emeline tried not to cringe at the earnest pathos of the pale, fragrant flowers set so incongruously among her tattered clothes. She mostly succeeded. 

In the end, she partly conceded to practicality. New trousers laced up tight, beige or no, and the fresh undershirt and short stays. Her old shirt layered with the new to seal out the cold, and wooly socks over her own stockings added warmth in her old garden boots—which had been carefully patched and re-soled while she recovered, she noticed. The jerkin was next, and over that her scarves—the thinner a bit of floral frippery she’d managed to salvage from her old chemise after it’d finally worn so thin and torn so badly it’d been about as useful as a napkin strapped over her bits, and the garishly patterned woolen tarten she’d stolen from a line when summer had started to give way to autumn’s crisp evenings. Then her gloves, fingerless to keep her hands nimble enough to pick herbs or bind a wound, and finally her cloak—her finest possession these days and not a patch in sight, warmer than anything else she owned, and a deep, glass green to boot. 

That had been a gift, from a bard travelling with a theater troupe. He’d warmed her bed as well, at least for a night or two. In his bid to flatter her enough to part with her knickers, he’d compared her hair to the flames of Andraste’s pyre itself. She hadn’t had the heart to tell him it wasn’t natural. She’d also altered the charm ever so slightly once he’d moved on—”holy death fire” wasn’t exactly the look she’d been aiming for. 

Truthfully, Emeline still wasn’t entirely sure whether _ he’d _ considered the cloak a gift, or rather a...well, a payment of sorts, but either way she figured she’d gotten the better end of the bargain. The wool  _ was _ very fine.

Her hair—wonderfully clean if not exactly tidy, although she didn’t like to dwell on the thought of some stranger washing her down in her sleep—was twisted and pinned into the loose chignon she’d preferred after the Circle, and she spent more time than was strictly necessary fluffing and rearranging the stray waves and curls that inevitably managed to escape. She could practically hear her dear Heloise’s voice, sternness masking her concern— _ one chance and one impression is all you’ll ever get, young lady, and make no mistake at that _ . 

In this one thing, she decided, she would at least endeavor not to disappoint. 

Still, Emeline couldn’t deny the nerves in her stomach, no matter how much elfroot she chewed. She smoothed and patted  and rebuckled and relaced until she couldn’t rightly give herself anymore excuses to delay the inevitable. Wrapping her cloak tighter about her, she took a breath and made her way to the cabin’s door.

And nearly turned right back around to slam it shut again.

It had taken a moment for her eyes to adjust to the sharp winter sun, but when they did, she saw two things. The first was the Breach, still there, still dominating the sky if seeming a bit more inert than before. The second was what looked like nearly the whole town, just...standing. Waiting for her. 

The last time she’d seen a crowd like this, it’d been a mob coming to chase her and the other mages out of their encampment at the edge of an abandoned farmstead. Or worse. Lillian hadn’t survived—Emeline remembered the apprentice’s sobs being drowned out by the crackling of fire as she’d tried to defend herself, catching her own robes in the flames as well as the few mercenaries she’d managed to ensnare in the brief, sputtering wall of fire.

Most of them hadn’t been trained to fight, after all. Outside of the classroom, Lilli had only ever used her talents to heat water for the baths and help the Tranquil light the kitchen fires.  

For a moment Emeline’s feet seemed rooted to the ground, as though vines had broken through the earth to ensnare her.  Her breath caught as she blinked at the wide eyes staring back at her, and suddenly she had the panicked thought that she couldn’t breathe, that the frigid air of the mountains was too thin and it was stabbing her lungs like icicles—

“It’s her. It’s the Herald—she’s awake! ” A voice rose out over the heads of the crowd—and it was reverent, even astonished. 

Most importantly, it did not sound as though it was preceding a pitchfork being hurled in her general direction. 

She remained still as stone as she watched, baffled, as the onlookers began to bow their heads. Some even kneeled, and she could hear the crunch of their knees on the frozen dirt.

She felt as though something were expected of her here, some pious declaration or platitude.

“I...” she started, trailing off.  

_ Don’t say anything, you’ll spoil it, they’ll realize they were wrong and you’ll be hanging before the week is out, _ a voice in the back of her mind whispered.

Emeline had long ago learned to listen to that little voice as if her life depended on it. On occasion, it had.

So she merely nodded and started forward, only stumbling once before arranging her features into a picture of placid humility and a gentle smile. She bowed her head just so—the better to avoid eye contact with any of her awestruck admirers. Her gait, stiff at first, softened as she breathed and made her way through the crowd, although she could feel every bead of sweat gathering at the nape of her neck and under her breasts, could feel every heartbeat pounding through her layers of clothing. 

The crowd split down the middle for her as she moved, like waves parting around ship, only to gently flow back together behind her. The villagers mostly kept a reasonable distance, but once she felt someone reach out to grasp her hand. It took all her willpower not to slap it away, her skin prickling at the unwanted touch. Instead, she managed a brief squeeze and moved on, winding her way through and toward the Chantry.

When she chanced to look up, she thought she glanced the figure of an elf watching her from a distance. The whisper of a snide remark amidst the eerie quiet distracted her then— _not much of a Herald, is she,_ _thought she was supposed to close the whole thing_. Her eyes snapped in the direction of the jab before she could stop herself, but the speaker was hushed up before she could place them.

When she looked back he was gone, and she wondered if he’d ever actually been there at all.

* * *

“Chain her, and have the prisoner prepared for transfer to the capital at once!”

Emeline was still foggy on what, exactly had happened somewhere between sealing one rift and, apparently, failing to seal another, but somehow Roderick’s voice came roaring back from the ether of her memory the moment she’d heard it through the door to the chantry’s back room. Apparently, there was a certain level of self-important masculine shrillness you never quite forgot, no matter how many blows to the head you received.

Up close and in person for the second time wasn’t exactly improving upon her first impression.

“Disregard that and leave us,” Cassandra ordered the faceless guards hovering near the door. Emeline could feel their hesitation, however brief, and their eyes warm on the back of her neck like hot, damp breath. She kept her own demurely on the table in front of her, even as her skin and her hands itched for the staff that had been conveniently taken from her as she’d recovered.

Cassandra was apparently not to be questioned, however, and the men left without protest, their armored boots echoing down the Chantry’s great hall. Emeline remained still, hands clasped as she listened to the others squabble as though she were a chess piece to be fought over. In a sense, she supposed, she was.

“You walk a dangerous line, Seeker,” the clerk warned.

“And? The breach is still there and it is still a threat. Do not expect me to ignore it, Chancellor.”

“I did everything I could—” Emeline murmured, but Roderick wasn’t having it.

“And yet  _ you _ are still here, alive, while our Divine and half of the Chantry are dead. A convenient result, insofar as you’re concerned,” he snapped. Emeline didn’t feel there was much point in reminding him that half of the mages, some of whom she might have known, even grown up with as far as he knew, were dead as well. Sentiment, she’d found, was often the most jealously hoarded of resources—and it never quite seemed to count unless you yourself could claim it.

“Have a care, Chancellor,” Cassandra ground out. Emeline nearly smiled. Whether Cassandra’s ire was because of Roderick’s continued, and frankly very  _ rude _ , accusations or because of his refusal to fall in line, she wasn’t sure—but she certainly wasn’t regretting taking a chance on those warming charms now.

“We know  _ someone _ was responsible for the explosion at the conclave, do we not?”

Emeline nearly jumped at the sound of Leliana’s voice as she suddenly emerged from the shadows.

“Someone Most Holy did not expect.” Leliana paced, staring down her nose at Roderick with a sort of bored intensity that had even Emeline feeling pinned, her skin almost itching with nerves.  

Leliana cocked her head, as though she was considering a particularly vexing crossword puzzle. 

“Perhaps they died with the others. Or,” and then very quickly she looked anything but bored, “perhaps they have allies who yet live.” Her eyes hadn’t wavered from Roderick, and they were sharp as steel. 

It was, Emeline thought—with not a little admiration and more than a little apprehension at the increasingly plausible possibility that Leliana was in a very stabby sort of mood—a rather canny bit of misdirection. There was little, if any reason to suspect a loyal career clerk like Roderick of any ill-doing beyond being perennially sourpussed, but it certainly caught him offguard.

“ _ I  _ am a suspect? You can’t be—”

“I am. You, and many others.”

“But not the prisoner? The mage, at that, who just so happened to—”   

“I  _ heard _ the Divine at the temple, Chancellor. She...called to her for help,” Cassandra interjected, her voice taut with emotion. 

Emeline bit back a noise of surprise—she didn’t recall that at all, but then, everything went oddly black somewhere around the time she keeled over during a flare and poor, sweet, improbably chesty Varric had grabbed her to keep her from toppling into a particularly icy bit of shrubbery. And the Seeker had the look of someone who would probably fall on her own oversized sword before she’d tell a lie, so, Emeline supposed, she might as well go along with it. 

She nodded solemnly at no one in particular, and managed not to roll her eyes at Roderick’s scoffing. She stood quietly, unperturbed, smelling that Chantry smell that seemed to haunt any building associated with it—incense, old wine, older books, mildew. She had a sudden flash of homesickness.

“So her survival, the thing in her hand, we’re to just mark it all down as coincidence?”

“Perhaps. Or maybe providence. I may be wrong, but you cannot deny she was what we needed, exactly when we needed it.” She held a hand up as Roderick began to speak, cutting him off. “And you cannot seriously look at this woman and say you see a mastermind, Roderick. She has no more knowledge of how any of this happened than we do, of that I am certain.”

Emeline couldn’t decide if she should be insulted or not at that particular statement—she settled for being grateful that Cassandra appeared to be winning the argument, and that Val Royeaux and the gallows seemed that much further off.

The bickering continued apace, with Roderick only growing more frustrated, heaving sighs like a great forge bellows between protests about mages, about the Divine’s wishes, about the insanity of not even keeping  _ the mage _ in shackles. 

“Enough!” Cassandra commanded. Emeline could see she’d strode forward with an enormous book in her hands, something that looked very old and very important. She flinched when it was dropped unceremoniously on the table—Senior Enchanter Louden would have tanned her hide for that, twenty-five years under her belt or not. 

“You know what this is, Chancellor,” Cassandra continued. It nearly sounded like a threat, but then, that tended to be the case with almost everything the Seeker said. “A writ from the Divine, granting us the authority to act.” She didn’t clarify who  _ us _ , exactly, was—the Seekers, Emeline wondered? The survivors of any generalized attack on the Divine and her retinue? Anyone who happened to find the book and had a passing knowledge of the Chant of Light? It seemed a little vague in her opinion, but she wasn’t exactly surprised when Cassandra continued without a clarification. At any rate,  _ us  _ didn’t appear to include Chancellor Lemonface so she was hardly complaining.

“—will close the Breach, we will find those responsible and we will restore order—with or _ without _ your approval.” 

The clerk’s nostrils flared, and he looked between the three women—two practically daring him to contradict them again with their eyes, one gazing serenely at the table. His mouth curled in distaste as he let out one last huff before he fled the room. The door banged behind him, and only then did Emeline let out a long, shuddering breath.

“So,” she finally said, looking up at Cassandra, “you changed your mind about me after all?”

Cassandra looked at her hard, considering.

“I was wrong,” she said slowly, nodding. “Perhaps I still am. But as I said to the Chancellor—I will not pretend you were not exactly what we needed, when we needed it.”

Perhaps it wasn’t exactly a resounding statement of confidence. Emeline stood there, shifting her feet before she broke the silence. 

“Well...that’s me, I’m a giver,” she chirped. Cassandra huffed the barest hint of a laugh, and the tension in the room eased a bit.

“This,” Leliana spoke up, gesturing at the book as she glanced over at Emeline, “is the Divine’s directive: rebuild the Inquisition of old, find those who would stand—”

“Wait, what? The Inquisition?” Emeline interrupted; Leliana’s nose wrinkled ever so slightly. “You can’t mean...that is, are we talking about the same Inquisition from the Nevarran Accord? The Nevarran Accord from  _ eight hundred years ago? _ ” 

“Of course,” Leliana said after a beat, “I should have known you would recognize the name.”

“Yes, well, it is the least favorite part of every Circle mage’s Chantry education.” Emeline darted a glance between the two women in front of her. “I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, but isn’t it all a little...well,  _ antique _ ? And I’m not meaning to be rude, don’t misunderstand me, but what do you expect your Inquisition to  _ do _ , exactly? Roam the countryside screaming about maleficarum and blood mages at every farmer with a papercut? Because from what I remember—and I had a very good history instructor, by the way—that was an exceedingly popular pastime for their lot.” 

Cassandra bristled at that, her back stiffening as Leliana peered at her from out of the corner of her eye.

“Well, she’s not entirely wrong, Cassandra,” she said, dry as dust.

“That is _ hardly _ all that the Inquisition accomplished—” Cassandra cut her herself short. Sighed, rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The Divine’s idea of the reborn Inquisition was far different than what it had been in the past. It was meant to be a last resort, only invoked when there was no other option. She envisioned it as a force to help the mages, not to hunt them. ”

Emeline snorted, trying and mostly failing to cover it up with a cough.

“I imagine that made her quite popular,” she said, daring to meet the Seeker’s gaze before moving her eyes to Leliana—herself observing the proceedings, ever watchful—and back again.

“Then you can also imagine why such a plan would have been kept so quiet, I am sure.” Now Cassandra just sounded tired. Emeline almost felt bad for her.

Almost.     

“Our,” Leliana said, just then. Her eyes glittered, cool as ever and a corner of her mouth lifted at the puzzlement on Emeline’s face. “You said  _ your _ Inquisition. In fact, we were rather hoping you would stay. We have no numbers, no support. The Chantry is in shambles. But our hands have been forced—we must act now, with you at our side.” She paused, as though considering what she was about to say next. Finally, she leveled those cold blue eyes on Emeline.

“To put it frankly, we need you.”

She couldn’t deny the little frisson of...something. Excitement maybe, or fear, or both, that ran up her spine at the words. Of course, Emeline knew what she was  _ really _ saying—they needed her hand, for one, and they needed their Herald, a convenient figure around which the frightened commoners could rally. That little experiment had already turned out rather well, at least in the bracky minnow pond of Haven. She could certainly see the utility of trying it out on a larger scale. 

The ghost of that grasping, clammy hand on her own as she’d made her way to the chantry set her skin to shivering, though. No,  _ that  _ was not at all enticing, not in the slightest.

“What if I refuse?” she ventured.

“You can go if you wish,” Leliana said.

“We cannot force you to stay,” Cassandra agreed.

_ Well, that’s an out and out lie, _ Emeline thought waspishly. One of her against a few more of those guards, and no doubt more than few of their ranks from the templars...they could bloody well do whatever they liked, and neither of them were stupid enough to think otherwise.

“But you should know that while some believe you chosen, many still think you guilty. The Inquisition can only protect you if you are with us,” Cassandra continued. 

And there was the hard sell. Emeline would have laughed if her stomach hadn’t just lurched. _Of course, flee at your leisure! But don’t come crying to us when you’re being burned alive by a few templars, an angry blacksmith and his charming family_ , she thought, swallowing hard. _Oh, wait, you won’t be able to. Because you’ll be dead._  

“We can also help you,” Leliana said. She didn’t elaborate. Emeline assumed the ‘by not allowing you to end up maimed and killed’ was implied.

“We need those who can do what must be done united under a single banner once more. Your presence could prove invaluable.” Cassandra took a step forward. “It will not be easy if you stay, but you cannot pretend this hasn’t changed you.”

In point of fact, Emeline didn’t particularly feel she  _ had _ changed. Of course there was the inconvenience of having some sort of magical conduit lodged in her hand, but as she stood and took stock of the situation, she found she felt nearly the same as she had a week before everything had quite literally blown up in her face, just filled with more exotic fruit.

Still, Cassandra wasn’t wrong about where she’d likely end up if she left—in a ditch or worse. It was anyone’s guess what her hand would be getting up to even if she wasn’t hunted down by a screeching mob, and now that many of the most senior and skilled mages in the Circle—the people most likely to have any idea what to make of the whole situation—were gone, well. It was hardly a difficult decision, in the end.

“Well...I admit I didn’t exactly expect this outcome when I woke up this morning,” she said carefully. “But of course I’ll stay and help as best I can.”  _ Of course. _

“Good. I do not blame you for being hesitant,” Cassandra said, that grim line disguised as a mouth replaced with a broad smile, “but although this may not have been an easy choice, I am sure you will come to see it is a wise one.”

Cassandra’s hand was stuck out towards her, and it took her a moment to realize Cassandra meant for them to shake on it. Her grip vaguely reminded Emeline of the time she’d gotten her hand trapped between a bed frame and a doorjamb when attempting to rearrange her dorm’s furniture.

“I will get in touch with some of my contacts,” Leliana was saying to Cassandra as Emeline was trying not to wince. “We’ll need people to help with the infrastructure and the soldiers. The sooner we get everything in place, the greater advantage we’ll have with the Chantry.  There’s been rumors of a cleric in the Hinterlands of Ferelden,” she continued, speaking directly to Emeline now. ”She’s been helping with the villagers there, caring for the wounded and the refugees. I believe she may be sympathetic to our cause, and we will need all the Chantry support we can manage.

“I’ve an idea that you may go with a few others to meet with her,” she continued, nodding at Emeline, “but of course that will have to wait until we’ve established that we exist at all. Representatives from an Inquisition in name only will hardly leave the impression we want.”

“Of course,” Emeline nodded, all politeness. Again, the phrase was bitter in her mouth, but still she said it sweetly. 

It was funny, she thought as Cassandra and Leliana turned to talk amongst themselves, how even after a year of freedom those words still slipped so easily from her lips.   

* * *

Emeline had left their little meeting with suggestions to familiarize herself with the town and a few of the people that had proven invaluable to the fledgling outfit’s efforts—a blacksmith and unofficial armorer down at the outskirts, a quartermaster set up by one of the many encampments of tents and soldiers, and her elven friend’s Master Adan, tucked away in the apothecary’s cabin to the west of the tavern.

It was on her way to sate her curiosity about the latter that she spied Solas, lingering outside what appeared to be a makeshift infirmary up a small set of steps cut into the frozen hillside. He was pacing, obviously lost in thought even as people hurried in and out of the cabins behind him and the noise of the tavern’s business began to pick up steam. He would pause to rub his chin or gaze out over the mountains surrounding the village, unperturbed. 

She slowed her step, watching and pretending she wasn’t.  His tatty vest had been removed and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing pale forearms thick with muscle—more than she was used to seeing on an elf, at any rate. The elves in the Circle were soft, like all the mages were, and usually small—the result of too little food and too little care in the alienages they usually came from. Solas had had no such disadvantages, it seemed, or maybe he just came from an especially hardy line. His profile was as elegant as she remembered, strong lines bleeding out into the unexpected curve of his high cheekbones and a proud, sturdy chin. In the golden blue light of early dusk mingling with the sickly green of the Breach his shadow stretched, thin and bruised against the dirty snow.

She wondered if his poor head didn’t get cold, but then, as she ascended the last steps up the embankment and saw his feet near enough to bare on the freezing ground, she assumed it must not be much of a bother. 

“So I was right, I was getting the star treatment,” she said, her breath misting around her. 

Solas turned, and it didn’t escape her notice that she hadn’t appeared to startle him. She nodded at the cabins—through an open shutter or two lines of pallets could be seen, some with patients, others in the process of being stripped bare and airing out the sweat and sickness trapped in their stuffing.

“Ah, the chosen of Andraste, a blessed hero sent to save us all.” He said it wry, just barely smiling at his own irreverence. It might have annoyed her, very nearly did—he had a way of speaking that reminded her of the way she spoke to her especially tiresome students back at the Circle—except she couldn’t deny the relief that flooded her at the thought that here, finally, was someone who seemed to see the absurdity of the situation. 

“And should I be riding in on a shining white steed, do you think?” Emeline asked, picking up the joke. 

Where his eyes were measuring before, for a flash they looked very nearly warm, and she couldn’t help but feel a twist of triumph at his chuckle. 

“I would have suggested a mighty griffon, perhaps—but sadly they’re extinct.” The sudden turn of his humor threw her, and then he was looking at her again, serious. “Joke as you will, such posturing will be necessary in the days to come.”

“And who says it’s posturing?” Emeline looked behind her. “Don’t I look appropriately haloed by the Maker’s blessing?”

He smiled, seemingly amused. 

“Perhaps you do.” He turned, looking back out over the mountains. “I’ve journeyed deep into the Fade in ancient ruins and battlefields to see the dreams of lost civilizations. I’ve watched as hosts of spirits clash to reenact the bloody past in ancient wars both famous and forgotten. Every great war has its heroes.” He was quiet for a moment, lost in remembrance, she thought. When he moved back to Emeline, his eyes were solemn, and she was struck by his moods, how he moved from jesting to the utmost gravity like quicksilver. 

“I’m merely curious what kind  _ you _ will be.”

Emeline nearly asked if this was some sort of trick question. Like before, she couldn’t help but feel that beyond simple curiosity, this was a test of sorts. She was as bothered by the fact that she might not be able to give the right answer as she was his cool regard. Hadn’t she just made him laugh, after all? And she’d only been awake for half a day, all this deeply dignified quizzing seemed terribly unfair if not a little bizarre on top of it.

“You mean you can find these ruins in the Fade itself?” She congratulated herself on the deflection. Luckily, he didn’t seem to take too unkindly at the question, and responded readily enough, seeming even to warm to the subject.

As he explained—that ruins are nearly always soaked in blood, that the impression they leave behind even in the Fade is often like a beacon waiting to be found and that spirits do just that, weakening the Veil—she noticed the way his eyes went sharp and then dreamy at the same time, the way he considered his words and how he even smiled as she listened. She knew then that while he may not have been an academic in the strictest sense—no classroom of students to teach and regale, no robes flapping dust into the air or dipping into unfortunate alchemical concoctions—he was every bit the teacher. And  _ that _ , she knew, she could work with, was something she could win over, maybe even befriend.

She was a few years out of practice, but she’d always been a teacher’s pet.

“—I go deep into the Fade. I can find memories no other living being has ever seen.” 

“So you just...fall asleep? In the middle of these blood-soaked, ancient ruins? That seems rather dangerous, doesn’t it?”

“I do set wards.” He smiled. Where Leliana’s eyes made her think of cut glass and ice, his were more like pools of clean, clear water, shifting with his every thought. Now, they were indulgent, even congenial. “And if you set out food for the giant spiders, they are usually content to live and let live.”     

_ Yes _ , Emeline thought.  _ I can definitely work with this. _

They bantered for a few more minutes, watching the sun setting and Emeline trying her best not to shiver in the cold, about the relative danger posed by demons, wolves, and poorly spotted rashvine. He was funny, in a quiet sort of way, she discovered, and as keenly intelligent as he looked. When he mentioned the wondrous things one could find in such places, artifacts and memories lost to time and the endless re-writing of history, he spoke with awe, but there was a kind of sadness to him too, as though it pained him to think of such things being cast aside forever. 

Emeline was shading her eyes from the last, particularly piercing rays of sunshine of the day when Solas nodded to himself, squaring his shoulders, as though he had just decided something.

“I shall stay,” he pronounced suddenly. “At least until the breach is closed.”

“Oh.” She paused, not entirely sure what to say. “Was...that in question? I thought—”

The look he gave her was searing in its exasperation.

“I am an apostate. More to the point, I am an apostate surrounded by Chantry forces in the middle a rebellion led by mages, and unlike you, I do not have a divine mark protecting me.” 

“Oh, well...point taken.” The silence when he didn’t reply was near enough to awkward to give her palpitations when a thought hit her. A sly smile spread across her face and she leaned forward.

“If they try anything, you know, I’ll help you get away.” She looked skyward, making a show of considering. “As long as you don’t mind my complaining about the weather, that is. Though I think I’ve gotten  _ much _ better about it.”

“Really? You would help me flee?” The twitch of his lip told her she’d at least partly succeeded, if only in amusing him. “How?”

Emeline blinked, perfectly deadpan. 

“I’m a Circle mage turned apostate, surrounded by Chantry forces all my life, in the middle of a rebellion led by mages that  _ I _ was a part of.” She cocked her head. “Do you really think I don’t know a few tricks?”

A few beats passed before Solas snorted.

“Point taken.”  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In all honestly I can't remotely remember if those cabins behind Solas are infirmary related at all or not. I just figured he needed something to do with his time when he's not staring into space and Adan was right there, which would make sense given he's the one making all the potions that would be needed. I think at least one of them is just a little lived-in cabin, possibly Solas'. Oh well, the canon gods will have to forgive me just this once.


End file.
